2. What are muons? What did Chris Polly, a physicist, notice that was unusual in their behavior?
3. How does this recent Fermilab experiment relate to a similar experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2001?
4. What did Dr. Polly mean when he asked, “What monsters might be lurking there?” Do you have the same curiosity about the significance of the muon’s aberrant behavior? Why or why not?
5. What does it take for experimental results to be confirmed as a physical discovery? What’s next in the muon experiment process?
6. What kind of questions could the muon experiment answer? Have you ever wondered about questions like the ones listed in the article?
7. How did physicists react to the April 7 announcement of the first results of the Muon g-2 experiment hosted at Fermilab? What do you think about the results?
Going further
Option 1: Read the rest of the article.
Here are some questions that will help you reflect on what you are learning as you read each of the following sections:
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– Who ordered this? “What else did you learn about muons, the g-factor, and the original Brookhaven experiment?”
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The big move – What details came to your attention about the preparations for the Fermilab experiment?
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In the dark – What new information did you get about the results of the Fermilab experiment?
He then reacted to the last paragraphs of the article:
Physicists say the anomaly gave them ideas on how to look for new particles. These include particles light enough to be within reach of the Great Collider Hadron or its designed successor. Indeed, some could have already been recorded, but they are so rare that they have not yet emerged from the blizzard of data recorded by the instrument.
Another candidate named Z-prime could shed light on some Big Bang puzzles, according to Gordan Krnjaic, a cosmologist at Fermilab.
The g-2 result, he said in an email, could set the agenda for physics in the next generation.
“If the central value of the observed anomaly remains fixed, the new particles cannot be hidden forever,” he said. “We will learn more about fundamental physics in the future.”
What do you think? How big do you think these results are? And what new discoveries do you think the Muon g-2 continuous experiment will lead to?
Option 2: Explain one or more of the concepts discussed in the article through a creative piece.
Muon particles, the g-factor, and the standard pattern may not be familiar terms to most teens – or most adults. Take one or more of the ideas you learned by watching the video in the warm-up activity and reading the Times article and help break them down into a creative piece. Your goal is to help people not strongly understand particle physics to understand.